MPA in Urban Innovation and Policy

​

The Laboratory offers a specialised Master degree (MPA) in Urban Innovation and Policy as part of the Department of Science, Technology, Engineering and Public Policy (STEaPP) MPA options.

This cutting-edge curriculum links expertise at UCL STEaPP in science and public policy with the Lab’s policy network, and the wider landscape of UCL research and teaching in urban studies. MPA students follow rigorous policy training at UCL STEaPP taking urban studies electives in the world-class departments of UCL’s Bartlett and Engineering Faculties.

The course explores two core units: ‘Challenges of City Leadership’, taught with the Lab's visiting faculty, and ‘Urban Innovation and Policy’, designed to visit over 10 UCL centres specialising in cities. As a result, students are able to draw on the unique breadth of UCL urban research expertise, and test pioneering technical and policy-related approaches to urban innovation. At the end of the MPA, students will be able to identify, establish limits and possibilities, as well as mobilise a variety of different disciplinary viewpoints to address urban policymaking.

The Laboratory offers, via UCL STEaPP, a suite of professional education programs centred on city leadership, negotiation and innovation.

​

For example Working with City Leaders is a short course which equips professionals with a practical guide on how to effectively engage city decision-makers and to operate with insight into political challenges and a greater confidence at a strategic partnering level in cities.

With the guidance of expert practitioners in the area of urban policy and innovation, the course challenges professionals to develop a fundamental set of policy and strategic skills which will shape their capacity to steer the future development of cities and their governance.

​

The four key themes covered on the course are:

City leadership and its relation to city politics and governance

Major city trends influencing strategic projects and consulting demands

City networking and the networked basis of today’s city leadership

The challenges to communication and engagement when dealing with urban policy

The workshop equipped participants with a practical guide on how to effectively engage with city decision-makers and to reach beyond simply being receivers of a political agenda into developing a set of fundamental policy skills with the guidance of experts in the area of urban policy and innovation.

​

The Fundamentals of City Leadership workshop expands upon the City Leadership Laboratory's ethos of connecting urban innovation and policy practice across boundaries and partnering with centres of expertise around the world in cutting edge education and research.